Dark Matters: Unifying Matter, Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and the Universal Grid [Paperback]

Dr. Percy Seymour (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2008

One of the most important unsolved problems of current physics, astronomy, and cosmology is the nature of dark matter and dark energy. These two invisible components of the universe seem to control the behavior of galaxies, clusters of galaxies, and the accelerating expansion of the universe, but we do not know what they are. This book offers a unified explanation for dark matter and dark energy, and, in doing so, formulates a new theory of ordinary matter.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

"[Seymour's work] will provide a new theory of solar activity...and a new [understanding of] the way magnetic fields affect human life."

--Dava Sobel, best-selling author of Longitude and Galileo's Daughter

"I regard Percy Seymour as one of the boldest and most exciting scientific thinkers of our time."
--Colin Wilson, author of The Outsider

About the Author

Dr. Percy Seymour, author of eight acclaimed books on astronomy and cosmology, received his bachelor's degree in 1964, master's in 1965, and Doctor of Philosophy in 1967, all from Manchester University. His special area of study was magnetic fields in the Milky Way galaxy. From 1972 to 1977, he was senior planetarium lecturer at the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, home of Prime Meridian of the World. From 1977 to 2003, he was principal lecturer in astronomy at the University of Plymouth. He now lives in Queen Camel in Somerset, UK.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: New Page Books (July 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1601630069
• ISBN-13: 978-1601630063
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,382,439 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Dr Percy Seymour, author of eight acclaimed books on astronomy and cosmology, was born in Kimberley, South Africa, in 1938. He received his Bachelors degree in 1964, Masters in 1965 and Doctor of Philosophy in 1967, all from Manchester University. His special area of study was magnetic fields in the Milky Way Galaxy.
From 1972 to 1977, he was Senior Planetarium Lecturer at the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, home of Prime Meridian of the World. From 1977 to 2003, he was Principal Lecturer in Astronomy at the University of Plymouth. He now lives in Queen Camel in Somerset.
My most recent book is a kindle one, entitled RUTHERFORD, BOHR, MANCHESTER AND THE ATOMIC NUCLEUS. When I was an undergraduate physics student at the Schuster Laboratory of Manchester University, between 1962-64, I sometimes did very standard physics experiments at the very bench at which Rutherford and his colleagues carried out the experiments on which the Bohr-Rutherford atomic model was based. This recent book is to highlight the fact that in 2011 it will be exactly 100 years ago that Rutherford and his collaborators discovered the nucleus of the atom.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Nearly Worthless Book, May 21, 2010

By 

Steve R. Yount (Roseville, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Dark Matters: Unifying Matter, Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and the Universal Grid (Paperback)

Dark matter & dark energy are discussed only briefly. The majority of the book is just a review of physics and cosmology, and mainly classical instead of modern physics. A person interested in dark energy and dark matter should already be familiar with those topics. He finally "presents" his new theory that explains dark matter and dark energy in ways that don't use concepts from string theory (or M theory). But he presents it in a very confusing manner that's almost too painful to read. The analogies he uses to explain it are almost ridiculous. I look forward to selling this awful book and converting it to cash.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not much to it., August 1, 2010

By 

F. Baker "skeptic" (minnesota) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Dark Matters: Unifying Matter, Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and the Universal Grid (Paperback)

Let me first of all state that I haven't read the entire book, only the first 100 pages. But in those 100 pages I found several outright scientific errors, several ambiguities and several points of confusion. I doubt if I will read the rest.

Page 21: The author is talking about the expansion of the universe, specifically Hubble's distance vs speed relation (the most distance galaxies have the greatest recessional velocity). The author states, "The most distant galaxies would be traveling at the highest speeds because they were given the `biggest push' by the initial explosion."

This is ludicrous. If the author were correct this would imply that the Earth (solar system or local cluster of galaxies) was the center of the universe, which it is not. Science usually uses the concept of an expanding balloon with dots on it (not a perfect analogy, but it works) to explain the Hubble relationship. The dots farthest away (the most distant galaxies) would have the greatest velocity because all the intervening balloon surface (space) is experiencing expansion as you inflate the balloon, hence the greatest velocity of recession. And as you got closer to the Earth (one of the dots), less balloon surface is expanding hence smaller velocities of recession. The Earth being the center of the expansion is just an illusion. Every dot (galaxy) would seem to be the center of expansion.

The big bang was not an explosion like we think of an explosion. It was the creation of matter (energy) and space. The galaxies would move away from each other by the expansion of that space, not for the most part by the initial, in the author's words explosion.

Page 35: Just confusing. The author is talking about a compass and how it interacts with a magnet. The author states, "If a small compass is brought close to one end of the magnet, the compass needle will point directly away from it, whereas if brought close to the other end the needle will point directly toward it".

I understand what he(the author) is implying. The compass needle (with the North end clearly marked) will point either toward or away from the magnet depending on which pole it was brought close to. But my point is, whether or not the North end of the compass points away or toward the magnet is just a random event. His choice of word usage is just ambiguous.

Page 43: The author is talking about Newton's law of Universal Gravitation as a reference to how the negative electron interacts with the positive nucleus of an atom. The author states, "Just as the force of gravitation of the sun on a planet is inversely proportional to the inverse square of the distance between them, so .........."

Newton's law of Universal Gravitation states that the force of gravity is proportional to the inverse square of the distance and directly proportional to the product of the two masses involved. Or it is sometimes written the force of gravity is inversely proportional to the square of the distance and directly proportional to the product of the two masses involved. The author left off the masses which is no problem as he was referring to electrostatic interactions and was referencing only the inverse square law.

If Newton's Law was as the author states, " ...is inversely proportional to the inverse square of the distance between...", that would imply that gravity was directly proportional to the distance (an inverse of an inverse is a direct relationship) . This would mean that as distance between two objects increased, the force of gravity increases also which is totally incorrect. Gravity (and electrostatic interactions) falls off with the distance (specifically with the square of the distance). If you separate two bodies to be twice as far apart as they were in some initial condition, the force of gravity ( electrostatic interactions) would become 1/4 as much as when the bodies were close together.

Page 64: Figure 2.10 which is supposed to represent the Hertz sprung-Russell graph is very confusing and wrong. First of all, the left side of the diagram (graph) is labeled as "Brightness of stars". Brightness in relation to WHAT, a candle, a light bulb, the sun?????? Secondly, the horizontal axis is labeled as "Surface temperature of star (K)". I seriously doubt that stars have a surface temperature colder that space itself. According to the graph, a star of `brightness' of 1 would have a surface temperature of .00005 Kelvin. Space itself has an overall temperature of about 2.73 K, stars can't be colder than that.

Page 96: Figure 3.19, the graph illustrating Hubble's Law. It would be nice if the Hubble data represented such a nice perfect straight line. In fact, Hubble's data was widely scattered and only with a line of best fit could you approximate a straight line. Now I understand the author is just showing the general relationship or trend, that as you get farther away the speed of recession increases. However, if he is going to present Hubble's Graph and put numbers on it, he could at least use numbers to label the graph that actually represent Hubble's data instead of fictitious numbers that mean nothing. It wouldn't take much effort to label the graph with actual information rather than useless drivel. Using the information on his graph, Hubble's Constants would have a value of about 20 kilometers per second per megaparsec. The actual value is right around 80 kilometers per second per megaparsec.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Plasma space theory, August 31, 2009

By 

Bruce Scofield (Amherst, MA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Dark Matters: Unifying Matter, Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and the Universal Grid (Paperback)

The title of the book is a bit misleading as it suggests that it is about dark matter and dark energy. While they are certainly considered and explained in ways that are different from those of other scientists, the book is essentially a compact summary of the historical developments in physics and astrophysics which have led to the present situation and its problems in those fields. Like Lee Smolin (The Trouble with Physics) Percy Seymour doesn't see much hope for string theory nor, for that matter, with the relentless search for a theory of everything. He is a practical thinker and more concerned with how things actually work, and he is especially interested in the electro-magnetic force. In a short section of the book he presents his own plasma space theory which is based on the existence of electric lines of force that permeate space - but the explanation is too brief. This theory is claimed to resolve discrepancies between relativity and quantum mechanics, and also explain dark energy and dark matter. For the most part, the book is an excellent summary of all the major events in Newtonian, Maxwellian, Einsteinian and Quantum physics with a lot of attention given to cosmic magnetism, a topic also covered in a book by this author.